UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. UN Women supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programs, and services needed to implement these standards. Violence against women and girls (VAWG), including domestic violence, continues to be a widespread social problem and a serious violation of fundamental human rights. This type of violence is still seen and tolerated as a “socially acceptable behavior” and is justified by traditional and patriarchal conceptions of the role and status of women in society. Women’s right to live free from violence is upheld by international agreements such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), especially through General Recommendations 12 and 19, and the 1993 UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women. UN Women works with countries at the global level to advance the international normative framework through support provided to inter-governmental processes, such as the General Assembly and the CSW. At the country level, UN Women supports Governments in adopting and enacting legal reforms aligned with international and regional standards. In this regard, adoption of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combatting violence against women and domestic violence (also known as the Istanbul Convention), the first legally-binding instrument in Europe in the field of violence against women and domestic violence, is very critical as it provides a comprehensive legal and policy framework for the protection and assistance to all victims of violence against women and domestic violence. UN Women Europe and Central Asia supports Governments, UN agencies, civil society organizations and other institutions to advocate for ending violence, increase awareness of the causes and consequences of violence and build capacity of partners to prevent and respond to violence. UN Women works with Governments to develop dedicated national action plans to prevent and address violence against women, strengthening coordination among diverse actors required for sustained and meaningful action and advocates for the integration of violence in key international, regional and national framework.In this regard, UN Women’s partner - DENTOS legal company -providing pro-bono legal service - conducted an analysis of compliance of the legal frameworks of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan with the provisions and standards of the Istanbul Convention. The purpose of this consultancy is to engage a EVAW/women’s human rights expert to review and validate findings of the analysis, ensure human rights and gender equality standards/perspectives are included and provide recommendations to governments on how to improve their efforts to harmonize their legislation on violence against women and domestic violence with the legal areas covered by Istanbul Convention (social protection and assistance to survivors of domestic violence, security, health care, judiciary, social assistance, judiciary, safe houses and other). It is also important to integrate perspectives of CEDAW and its General Recommendations N19 and 35 to provide stronger evidences to strengthen the legal response to VAWG.
|
